Although Munger is by far the most popular living option for incoming SLS students, it is by no means the only option. Many couples (especially those with children) choose to live in the family-friendly Escondido Village. An overview of housing options for law students is available here. Living off campus close to the university is hella expensive, but necessary in certain situations (e.g. you own a pet that is not a companion or service animal).

Looking forward to ASW as well! Only gonna be there the 9th and 10th, but should be fun. Anyone have a sense of when financial aid offers start trickling in? Would love to get a sense of exactly how much it's gonna cost to go to such an awesome law school is an amazing place...

Has anyone heard financial aid info? I'm curious to see how purely need-based aid pans out. My parents are broke, so I'm hoping that my award is comparable to my offers from other schools (or at least is significant enough to justify Stanford because of the differences in school quality and job outcomes). I've seen the scholarship quartiles from Stanford's 509, but that isn't super helpful without knowing the related statistics of students' financial backgrounds.

edit:I looked into Stanford's LRAP program and realized that it's based on the 10 year repayment plan and not one of the income driven plans like at other schools. My debt-averse self is significantly more relaxed after digging around.

Last edited by mesnggirl on Sun Mar 20, 2016 11:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I haven't heard anything, though if you look in Axess, you can see that 2017 Stanford Financial Aid is showing up, so that tells me they are working on it. Not sure what's going to happen or not happen this week, as it's Spring Break at SLS.

mesnggirl wrote:Has anyone heard financial aid info? I'm curious to see how purely need-based aid pans out. My parents are broke, so I'm hoping that my award is comparable to my offers from other schools (or at least is significant enough to justify Stanford because of the differences in school quality and job outcomes). I've seen the scholarship quartiles from Stanford's 509, but that isn't super helpful without knowing the related statistics of students' financial backgrounds.

edit:I looked into Stanford's LRAP program and realized that it's based on the 10 year repayment plan and not one of the income driven plans like at other schools. My debt-averse self is significantly more relaxed after digging around.

I'm also waiting for aid and am hoping for need-based, but I was wondering what you mean by SLS's LRAP being not income driven? There's a cap for the income, which is $80K, I think, to be able to qualify for LRAP (granted you're in PI).

mesnggirl wrote:Has anyone heard financial aid info? I'm curious to see how purely need-based aid pans out. My parents are broke, so I'm hoping that my award is comparable to my offers from other schools (or at least is significant enough to justify Stanford because of the differences in school quality and job outcomes). I've seen the scholarship quartiles from Stanford's 509, but that isn't super helpful without knowing the related statistics of students' financial backgrounds.

edit:I looked into Stanford's LRAP program and realized that it's based on the 10 year repayment plan and not one of the income driven plans like at other schools. My debt-averse self is significantly more relaxed after digging around.

I'm also waiting for aid and am hoping for need-based, but I was wondering what you mean by SLS's LRAP being not income driven? There's a cap for the income, which is $80K, I think, to be able to qualify for LRAP (granted you're in PI).

I mean, all of Stanford's aid is need based. Also, there isn't a proper cap on LRAP income; your income level just influences your individual contribution. Depending on your required contribution, it will eventually make sense not to use LRAP if you end up in well enough paying PI job (i.e. make enough that your expected contribution is equal or greater to your loan payment). The level of income required to meet that threshold depends on how much debt you end up taking out. If you look at the calculator posted on Stanford's website, you can plug and chug some numbers to see what LRAP would look like a different income/debt levels.

In terms of "income driven" plans, I was referencing the type of loan repayment plan that most LRAP programs require a participant to be enrolled in (PAYE or IBR). Because these repayment plans are based on one's income, hence "income driven", the payments that are required of the debtor are usually significantly smaller than the payments on the standard repayment plan that would eliminate one's debt after 10 years by making payments at the same rate for the duration of that time period. What this ultimately amounts to is Stanford's LRAP actually paying down your debt versus many other schools who, practically speaking, are merely covering your small payments until you can hit PSLF and alleviate any remaining debt owed (low payments from these LRAPs mean that interest can frequently accrue at a rate that equals or surpasses the PAYE/IBR payments) . This gives someone enrolled in Stanford's LRAP much more flexibility in terms of leaving PI for private work before 10 years is up without having a similar debt obligation to when they started. This also means (I think? I haven't verified this next portion yet) that if someone started in Big Law, hated it, but payed off a significant amount (say, 3 years of payments worth) of their loans, then those earnings have still had an impact (Stanford would be willing to help pay off the remaining loans at the 10 year rate, so you may get off of your loans paid off in a 6.5-7 years depending on how your additional payments affected interest). Conversely with other LRAPs, the income based repayment plans could lose the gains made by the Big Law earnings because the repayment rate is so low, meaning that someone could still have to do qualifying PI work for 10 years and use PSLF to become debt-free.

I think that fliptrip and another user addressed this distinction in more detail earlier this morning in another forum (I think the forum topic was if paying sticker at a T14 was ever worth it, but he would remember better than I do). Personally, I don't know what sort of law I want to go into, so this flexibility is rather appealing and comforting.

mesnggirl wrote:I mean, all of Stanford's aid is need based. Also, there isn't a proper cap on LRAP income; your income level just influences your individual contribution. Depending on your required contribution, it will eventually make sense not to use LRAP if you end up in well enough paying PI job (i.e. make enough that your expected contribution is equal or greater to your loan payment). The level of income required to meet that threshold depends on how much debt you end up taking out. If you look at the calculator posted on Stanford's website, you can plug and chug some numbers to see what LRAP would look like a different income/debt levels.

In terms of "income driven" plans, I was referencing the type of loan repayment plan that most LRAP programs require a participant to be enrolled in (PAYE or IBR). Because these repayment plans are based on one's income, hence "income driven", the payments that are required of the debtor are usually significantly smaller than the payments on the standard repayment plan that would eliminate one's debt after 10 years by making payments at the same rate for the duration of that time period. What this ultimately amounts to is Stanford's LRAP actually paying down your debt versus many other schools who, practically speaking, are merely covering your small payments until you can hit PSLF and alleviate any remaining debt owed (low payments from these LRAPs mean that interest can frequently accrue at a rate that equals or surpasses the PAYE/IBR payments) . This gives someone enrolled in Stanford's LRAP much more flexibility in terms of leaving PI for private work before 10 years is up without having a similar debt obligation to when they started. This also means (I think? I haven't verified this next portion yet) that if someone started in Big Law, hated it, but payed off a significant amount (say, 3 years of payments worth) of their loans, then those earnings have still had an impact (Stanford would be willing to help pay off the remaining loans at the 10 year rate, so you may get off of your loans paid off in a 6.5-7 years depending on how your additional payments affected interest). Conversely with other LRAPs, the income based repayment plans could lose the gains made by the Big Law earnings because the repayment rate is so low, meaning that someone could still have to do qualifying PI work for 10 years and use PSLF to become debt-free.

I think that fliptrip and another user addressed this distinction in more detail earlier this morning in another forum (I think the forum topic was if paying sticker at a T14 was ever worth it, but he would remember better than I do). Personally, I don't know what sort of law I want to go into, so this flexibility is rather appealing and comforting.

7 posts into your TLS career and your dropping serious insight.

This is an aspect of Stanford's LRAP I didn't realize and, as you correctly indicate, can be a big difference maker for people who may split time between PI/Gov and Private. Thanks for the info

mesnggirl wrote:Has anyone heard financial aid info? I'm curious to see how purely need-based aid pans out. My parents are broke, so I'm hoping that my award is comparable to my offers from other schools (or at least is significant enough to justify Stanford because of the differences in school quality and job outcomes). I've seen the scholarship quartiles from Stanford's 509, but that isn't super helpful without knowing the related statistics of students' financial backgrounds.

edit:I looked into Stanford's LRAP program and realized that it's based on the 10 year repayment plan and not one of the income driven plans like at other schools. My debt-averse self is significantly more relaxed after digging around.

I'm also waiting for aid and am hoping for need-based, but I was wondering what you mean by SLS's LRAP being not income driven? There's a cap for the income, which is $80K, I think, to be able to qualify for LRAP (granted you're in PI).

I mean, all of Stanford's aid is need based. Also, there isn't a proper cap on LRAP income; your income level just influences your individual contribution. Depending on your required contribution, it will eventually make sense not to use LRAP if you end up in well enough paying PI job (i.e. make enough that your expected contribution is equal or greater to your loan payment). The level of income required to meet that threshold depends on how much debt you end up taking out. If you look at the calculator posted on Stanford's website, you can plug and chug some numbers to see what LRAP would look like a different income/debt levels.

In terms of "income driven" plans, I was referencing the type of loan repayment plan that most LRAP programs require a participant to be enrolled in (PAYE or IBR). Because these repayment plans are based on one's income, hence "income driven", the payments that are required of the debtor are usually significantly smaller than the payments on the standard repayment plan that would eliminate one's debt after 10 years by making payments at the same rate for the duration of that time period. What this ultimately amounts to is Stanford's LRAP actually paying down your debt versus many other schools who, practically speaking, are merely covering your small payments until you can hit PSLF and alleviate any remaining debt owed (low payments from these LRAPs mean that interest can frequently accrue at a rate that equals or surpasses the PAYE/IBR payments) . This gives someone enrolled in Stanford's LRAP much more flexibility in terms of leaving PI for private work before 10 years is up without having a similar debt obligation to when they started. This also means (I think? I haven't verified this next portion yet) that if someone started in Big Law, hated it, but payed off a significant amount (say, 3 years of payments worth) of their loans, then those earnings have still had an impact (Stanford would be willing to help pay off the remaining loans at the 10 year rate, so you may get off of your loans paid off in a 6.5-7 years depending on how your additional payments affected interest). Conversely with other LRAPs, the income based repayment plans could lose the gains made by the Big Law earnings because the repayment rate is so low, meaning that someone could still have to do qualifying PI work for 10 years and use PSLF to become debt-free.

I think that fliptrip and another user addressed this distinction in more detail earlier this morning in another forum (I think the forum topic was if paying sticker at a T14 was ever worth it, but he would remember better than I do). Personally, I don't know what sort of law I want to go into, so this flexibility is rather appealing and comforting.

I don't think the bolded is true, although I'm fully admitting I'm no expert on this and could be wrong.

The way I understand it is this: Say you start off with 300k in debt and go into big law. If you then pay off 150k of that after 3 years in big law, then go PI and LRAP it, Stanford would then be paying off your loans on a 7 year schedule based off the 150 you still owe, not the 300k/10 year schedule (which would be advantageous to you because it would be paying off more chunks of your debt annually). What this means is it would still take you the 10 years for everything to all be paid off.

Conversely however, if you started in PI and then went into big law (a much rarer path, of course), you would start out LRAPing at the 300k/10 year rate, and then if you went into the private sector and started paying off what remained at a quicker rate you could be debt free in 7-8 years.

That's my interpretation at least, and again, I could be totally wrong about that. But the rest of that post is spot on. Also, I posted this thread a while back comparing Stanford's LRAP to COAP and LIPP. Might be helpful/germane to this conversation...

This LRAP conversation is extremely helpful as I weigh Stanford w/ debt vs. CCN w/o, especially since I'm squarely in the boat of "I want to do gov work, but the non-gov version of what I would do is BigLaw" camp. But just want to give people a heads-up that I got my award letter email last night. I now have to wait 24 hours for my SUNet ID to get onto AXESS, but it looks like we'll have some more insight into just how reliant on LRAP we all might be!

Necho2 wrote:This LRAP conversation is extremely helpful as I weigh Stanford w/ debt vs. CCN w/o, especially since I'm squarely in the boat of "I want to do gov work, but the non-gov version of what I would do is BigLaw" camp. But just want to give people a heads-up that I got my award letter email last night. I now have to wait 24 hours for my SUNet ID to get onto AXESS, but it looks like we'll have some more insight into just how reliant on LRAP we all might be!

I got my award letter as well. Pretty generous, but my issue is that it only shows what I'll be receiving for 1L. I have guaranteed 3 year offers from other schools (albeit "lower" ranked), so I have to think about it.